by Veronica Berglyd Olsen

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The “No True Creationist” Fallacy

I was once upon a time a Christian, and I had creationism – what passes for science in fundamentalist Christian circles – pushed on me from an early age. When I was a young adult and the internet came around, I spent a lot of time on websites like talkorigins.org and various creationist sites as well as reading books. I eventually came to the conclusion that creationism is an indefensible position from a scientific point of view. It is pseudo-science. Pure and simple.

Libby Anne, author of the blog Love, Joy, Feminism, had her “Why I am an Atheist” post posted on PZ Myers blog a while back and have had a response from Answers in Genesis (AiG), one of the pseudo-science organisations devoted to defend the most backwards of all the variations of creationism: Young Earth Creationism or YEC, who believe the Earth is only 6000 years old.

She writes in her “Why I am an Atheist” post:

… then I went to college, where my young earth creationist views were challenged. I responded by fighting back. I argued with both students and professors, sure that I had some sort of truth they were missing. I brought out every argument I had, and went back to my creationist resources for more. As time went by, though, I found my arguments effectively refuted by arguments and information I had never been exposed to before. To my utter shock, it seemed that the evidence actually fell on the side of evolution and against young earth creationism. After nearly a year of fighting, I conceded defeat.

As she undoubtedly discovered, AiG tend to cherry pick their science. Nearly all of their claims can be refuted by simply going to their sources, or looking up updated research. I have been engaging in similar discussions on discussion forums where their minions have been using arguments that touches on my own field, physics. Usually in connection with radiometric dating which of course strongly conflict with their 6000 year position.

Yesterday Libby Anne posted another post related to this. Dr. Purdom from Answers in Genesis replied to her initial post on PZ Myers blog. Even Ken Ham, the CEO of AiG and a well known pseudo-scientist, jumped in with a few comments. Not surprisingly Ken Ham has a solution to this dangerous knowledge that people get from attending colleges and stuff: Isolate and indoctrinate them!

We can undermine a lot of what we have done if we send our children to the wrong institution

Only goes to show that what they teach can only be upheld if you make sure your children stay ignorant of the last 200-odd years of scientific progress.

Libby Anne responds:

I can understand how my testimony could unnerve Ken Ham and Dr. Purdom. If someone could be as trained in creationism as I was an then reject it and accept evolution, what does that say about their ministry? But rather than taking another look at their beliefs, they’d rather just blame my change of views on the college I attended, or on the ludicrous idea that I was “exposed” to creationism but never “understood” it.

They essentially claim that Libby Anne was no true creationist or Christian in the first place. They couldn’t have been more wrong in this case according to Libby Anne. For her full response to Dr. Purdom, read her post “Rebutting Ken Ham’s Response”. It is very good if this sort of topics interests you.

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Purple Noize

Hi! My name is Veronica Berglyd Olsen, and this is my personal blog. I'm currently a PhD candidate in high energy physics at the University of Oslo, and vice president of the Norwegian LGBT Association in Oslo and Akershus. In addition to science, I'm interested in LGBT topics, feminism and humanism. I'm also the editor of Skepchick.no, and also write for other blogs.